China-India High-Speed Train in Feasibility
The world’s leader in high-speed rail development is certainly China. They keep adding to their tens of thousands of miles of train track each year.
But now they are taking their high-speed train on the road. According to this article, China and India have entered into an agreement where China will develop a feasibility study for creating a rail system between the two countries. When completed, the rail line will include over a thousand miles of track.
No doubt India is very comfortable with China paying for the study. The difficult part, however, will be when the study is complete and the nations have to discuss who will pay how much for the rail lines and trains. It will be quite an impressive feat for both countries if they actually make this happen.
To clarify – The track is NOT between the two countries but between one of the two top-5 cities in India (Delhi & Chennai). With the new PM (Modi), the country is working in a big way to improve the rickety Rail infrastructure in short time period.
Having traveled throughout large chunks of India on their railways, I can honestly say that it is a far-better run system than most other countries. Sure, the rolling stock may be a little old and dilapidated, but 2nd Class Sleeper is still pretty comfy, trains run pretty much on schedule despite traversing thousands of miles, and the ticketing (though a tad byzantine) is thoroughly reliable.
ZO – Fully agree about the sleeper class. BTW, ticketing has improved in the recent past. I just returned from vaca in India. We traveled on 2nd AC class. Booked tickets online (I believe, you need an India based CC) and travel was smooth.